Tapas des Deux

I seem to be slowly piecing together my perfect weekend out of all the weekends this month. The Scooba cleaned the floors this morning, there will be a thunderstorm here in about ten minutes, and there was some Breaking News (even though someone did die). And and now I’ve had a ridiculously good dinner at an unusual place.

Anyway, Friday we were heading for Casa Gallardo at Westport when we saw a “Fusion Tapas / Vodka Bar” named IceKitchen (the K is backwards). We plunked our plump little selves down in a booth and begged the waitresses patience. I haven’t had very much in the way of tapas, but I’ve had dim sum more than once.

More important, I haven’t had fusion food ever, as far as I can tell, because even though the vodka ice bar was made for the rangy West County females, fusion tapas was made for me. ME the middle-aged woman who eats anything now as long as I haven’t tasted it before.

A warning – damn – we have never spent that much money at a restaurant, ever. This might be because I had a Dreamsicle martini and Gary had so much Sangria I had to drive him home. (That would be 1.5 Sangrias.) In addition, we had a mad amount of tapas.

We started with three things from the light tapas menu.

First, a “flight” of soups. On the left: elephant garlic, on the right: corn chowder, in the middle: tortilla soup that Gary picked up and DOWNED LIKE A SHOT. To be fair, this was after I placed dibs on the corn chowder. The chowder had corn and leeks and sweet potatoes and was full of things I’ve never had with corn.

Then, since Gary had started the evening demanding asparagus, we had Asparagus Prosciutto salad:

Okay, these are the ingredients I’m sure of: asparagus and prosciutto and fried quail egg. Then there was some vegetation and other materials (yellow stuff, green stuff). I don’t know, but it was great.

Then we added flatbread.

Okay, that’s a very thin crusty / chewy flatbread, with broccoli and flank steak, carrots, and then – rice noodles on top! I am putting rice noodles on top of everything I make in the future. It’ll be like the time Mom served chicken breast with Campbells Cream of Mushroom topped with Pepperidge Farm Herb Dressing paired with green beans topped with Pepperidge Farm Herb Dressing. I was ready for anything next.

I stopped taking photos and we just charged into all the rest of the food. (Speaking of charged – yes, I think we were only at 15 bucks apiece. Except for the drinks.)

The next plates we moved from the light tapas menu into the signature tapas menu. The portions were the size of entrees elsewhere. For example, next we had bison fillet with Guinness (?) and honey (?) and lobster and quinona. And maybe, I don’t know, strawberries. Hell. Could have been.

Now, Gary ordered this one: Pig Belly with flash-fried cabbage and potato cakes annnnddddd …… buttermilk tuna puree? Something weird. Gary nibbled a bit on the pig belly.

“Tastes kind of fatty.”

He carved off a minuscule sliver of Edge du Pig Belly and claimed the edge was crispier. Then he ate the cabbage and I ate the potato cakes and we apologized to the waitress, because six perfectly good slices of pig fat went untouched.

We finished up with dessert, because Gary claimed he was drunk on pig belly. (There is an actual disorder called pig belly. I think it’s a reaction starving people have to protein.) So we had the chocolate banana carmel strawberry crepes, and those were good but I’m sorry, I’ve tasted those flavors before. Now, a chocolate pig belly asparagus sorbet, that would have been tasty.

Finally, we had something Gary called “Bread pudding wrapped in Phyllo dough,” and that’s precisely what it was, and it was wonderful.

AND it’s open for lunch. When I go back for lunch, I’m having the soup flight and the purple peruvian twice baked potatoes. The Signature Tapas menu is replaced by sandwiches for lunch, so I can’t imagine if they are conventional sandwiches or leftover pig belly and peanut butter on challah bread.

I’m all over this fusion food movement now, which is appropriate because it hit the coasts ten years ago, and that’s when coastal fashions get to the Midwest. (I understand you’ll be sending us incest soon.)

Ridiculously good meal. It made up for us celebrating our 24th anniversary at Cracker Barrel. Then again, every plate was approx 15 dollars.

P.S. Incidentally, if you want another take on the same place look at .75’s entry: https://www.stlcheesegirl.com/2009/05/icekitchen-at-westport.html